It has come to this site’s attention that certain individuals who are part of the Whale Oil book conspiracy are continuing to say the book is all true. It is not.
To set the record straight, there have been multiple claims and legal proceedings filed against both the publishers and the author. To date, all have been successful.
These claims have all been settled with significant payouts to the various parties. Marc Spring being one of the parties, and he received the biggest payout by far. There are still outstanding claims, with more pending according to our sources.
Despite what people associated with the book are saying, NOBODY SETTLES WITH ANYONE FOR NO GOOD REASON.
If the book was in any way true, or had the backing of factual evidence, then the publishers and the author would have not needed to settle. They would have had their day in court, with insurance paying the lawyer’s fees, and they would have been able to rely on the evidence they claim to hold. Sadly, they have NO evidence, they have just “what they wanted the evidence to be”. That is called fiction. Nicky Hagar, on the front cover, stated the book was created with “meticulous research”. What research Nicky? Hagar is yet to respond to our email requests for his evidence on that point. His silence is telling.
No wonder South Pacific Pictures have not made this fairytale into a TV movie. Maybe South Pacific Pictures should be asking for their money back.
Both the author, Margie Thomson, and the publishers, Potton and Burton have relied on their insurers to foot the huge bill. The pay outs for damages are only one part, as the legal bill must be enormous as well, with the large law firm, Wynn Williams, and its multiple staff who have worked on the various proceedings, along with Bruce Gray KC keeping an eye on the matter for their client, IAG Insurance.
A letter today is going to the insurers asking for a full investigation into the use of the insurance policy, as this site believes that the insurers were always a fall back position should the author and publisher get sued. In our view that is fraud. We have written multiple times to media lawyer, supposed defamation expert, and law professor at Victoria University in Wellington, Steven Price, asking for the documents he used to verify the truth of the book. To date we have had no reply from Steven Price. This site finds that odd as Price, according to the Radio NZ inteview with Matthew Blomfield, “went line by line” through the book and matched it to the evidence. We know that is not the case.
Spring says “if the insurance company does find that the policy was used in an incorrect manner, I would like to see both the author and publishers be held accountable, and be made to refund in full, all the legal costs, and payouts IAG has been made to pay” Spring goes on to say “the author in particular should have been contacting all the parties she intended to name to verify her allegations, but she did not, and that in my view is very telling that another agenda was at play”
At no stage from the book’s inception in 2016, through to it being published and released in 2019, did the author contact Marc Spring, or anyone else that has sued for the defamatory content that is in the book. To say this book is well researched is simply a bold faced lie.
There has been NO verification of any facts, it’s just one man’s view of events, that suits his narrative. A narrative that has been destroyed by the likes of the NZ Police.
Insurance policies in these circumstances are a back up for a genuine mistake, they are not to be used so that an author and publisher can say what ever they like, then just rely on the insurers to pay out for the mess.
This site’s view is that both Margie Thomson and Potton and Burton are likely now uninsurable.
